DECEMBER 2011 Getting Acquainted You Can Be A Philanthropist by Claire Stuart
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with assets of over $30 billion, is at work all over the United States and in over 100 countries, with the ambi- tious aims of fighting disease, improving health and food pro- duction, reducing poverty, and expanding educational oppor- tunities. While it would be nice to be
as wealthy as the Gates family, philanthropy isn’t just for the very rich. Amy Owen, executive director of the Eastern West Virginia Community Founda- tion (EWVCF), explains that community foundations are there for the rest of us, with the aim of improving life in specific regions. There are hundreds of com-
munity foundationss in the United States, with the first formed in Cleveland in 1914. EWVCF was founded in 1995 by civic-minded local citizens. It serves Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan Counties, with two af- filiates that serve Hardy and Hampshire Counties. Owen de- scribes a community founda- tion as a broad, flexible phil- anthropic instrument for the local community so that any- one can do something perma-
nent, establishing permanent endowment funds within one large fund. There is an important differ-
ence between simply donating to a favorite charity and giv- ing to a community founda- tion. Community foundation funds continue to grow, and the donor may choose from many ways to give. The gen- eral fund meets the changing needs of the community. The Field of Interest Fund targets categories such as education, conservation, health, arts, etc., while the Designated Fund goes to specific charities. Donor Ad- vised Funds allow givers to be involved in the distribution of their grants. Donors can give a sum and
have it split between funds. In- dividuals, businesses or groups can set up funds. They can give their fund any name that is meaningful, including a family name or a memorial to some- one. It takes at least $5,000 to set up a fund, but donors have five years to make the $5,000. “Large gifts feel more do-able
if they are given thru wills,” Owen reports. “We get many bequests. Some donors come in when they are preparing their
wills and make a ‘shell agree- ment.’ It isn’t valid until the do- nor dies, but they have decided the name of the fund and what purpose it will have.” The pattern of where funds
are targeted varies from year to year in our area, but most of it goes for scholarships and for grants to area schools for such things as arts programs, field trips, special books and musical instruments. However, an amazing variety of causes have been helped, including soup kitchens, wildlife refuges, historic sites, maintenance of parks, housing for homeless, Hospice, dental health, animal welfare and 4-H. “We invest the gift and the earnings provide a source of in- come for the fund,” says Owen. Collective investment and man- agement of funds is very cost
effective. The EWVCF funds are managed by several banks that all have local representation, and the investment fees are very low. As an example of how a fund
grows, Owen cited a half-mil- lion-dollar gift given in 1997 by Jane Snyder to benefit chil- dren. Since then, $300,000 has gone into the community, and now the value of the fund is $558,000. “This gift is growing, while rolling money into the community. It will give itself away over and over each 20- year cycle.” When former sheriff Randy
Smith won the lottery last year, his gift of $5 million to the EWVCF “changed the trajectory of the community fund,” says Owen. “We’re now on more people’s radar screens.” However, she adds that a
recent study describes West Virginia as being in the “phi- lanthropy divide” with the least amount of institutional funding—the big funds. And, a regional study to see where the “national bucks” are showed the eastern section of West Vir- ginia as the least of the least! “People assume we have a prosperous non-profit commu- nity,” says Owen, “but I think we have a lean non-profit com- munity.” Owen notes that one expla-
nation is that the Panhandle historically had no big wealthy families, hence no family foun- dations. “There are some in Huntington, Beckley & Park- ersburg,” she observes, “made with family funds – families that made fortunes in old ex- traction businesses.” Also, studies show that the
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